1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cover for the wheels of a roller blade skate. In particular, the invention is a cover for the wheels of a roller blade skate for immobilizing the wheels and protecting the wheels of the skate.
2. Prior Art
Skates, both roller skates and ice skates are used in both recreational and professional sports. Skating rinks, for both ice skating and roller skating are very popular for both professional and recreational use of skates. In the recreational rink skating, the social aspects of the sport are almost as much a part of the sport as the actual skating.
All skates, whether they be roller skates or ice skates appear to have a common objection relative wearing the skate off the surface of the rink, in, for example, the social and personal rest areas and/or the refreshment area of the rink. The objections to off-the-skating-surface use of skates have foundation in safety, both of the person wearing the skate and the surface over which the person wearing the skate is walking. When a person is at a skating rink for skating purposes, the person usually takes a break between skating secessions for refreshment purposes. It is also usual for the rink-skater to attend refreshment and rest areas with the skates on his feet, since it is bothersome to remove and replace the skates, the skater usually keeps the skates on, until the skater is ready to leave the rink. It is also usual to require that persons wearing skates in the refreshment area and/or the rest area of rinks have a satisfactory cover over the roller skate wheels or the ice skate blade.
In the case of roller skates, there are, at present, two popular type of roller skates. One popular type is the conventional roller skate which has two longitudinally spaced pairs of wheels on one skate. This type of skate is hereinafter referred to as a conventional roller skate. Another popular roller skate is a multi-wheel skate in which the wheels of each skate are mounted in a single line, in tandem alignment. This type of roller skate is referred to hereinafter as a roller blade skate. A currently popular roller blade skate has four (4) wheels mounted on each skate of a pair of skates. The four (4) wheels of the wheel assembly on each skate, are mounted in a single, straight line, so as to be aligned, in tandem.
A cover for the wheels of a roller skate is taught by Grim in his U.S. Pat. No. 4,355,474, which addresses the problem of covering the wheels of a conventional roller skate. Grim teaches a sheet type cover which hooks on to the end structure of the skate mounting, covering the spaced pairs of wheels with a flat, rectangular sheet. The sheet cover provides a surface or sole on which a skater may walk, with some safety, when not on the skating rink.
The roller skate sole of the '474 patent is not practical for use on a roller blade skate because of the wheel alignment of the skate. Further, the Grim teaching addresses the problem of covering wheels on conventional roller skates, taking account that the conventional roller skate has a wheel arrangement that provides a rectangular, almost square, area with which to work. This same type of rectangular area is not found on, nor defined by the wheels mounted on a roller blade skate.
Ice skate guards, such as taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,174,601 to Nathan; 1,686,667 to Kaskey; and, 3,583,720 to Fowlkes address the problem of protecting the blades of ice skates and do not address the problem of immobilizing the the wheels on wheel equipped skates, such as on the roller blade skate. The guards taught in the prior art for protecting the blades on ice skates are not designed for use on roller blade skates and fail to immobilize the tandem aligned wheels of the roller blade skates.